Anthem’s exciting open world held back by technical issues and content problems – REVIEW | Gaming | Entertainment

For every moment I enjoyed in Anthem there was many more that I found myself infuriated that I couldn’t just get on with playing.

The first impressions of a game that would like you to dedicate your time to it need to be better than good; it needs to be great.

A hollow story and technical problems mean that no matter how enjoyable the game could be, it wouldn’t let me find something that made me want to come back.

Playing as a nameless freelancer, the story starts with a bang as a mission goes wrong, and you have to start building your life as a Javelin for hire helping out those in need. It doesn’t take long before old friends turn up and it’s time to crack back on with your original mission.

Anthem is at it’s best when flying around the open-world, utilising your powers, and taking out adversaries with the weapons at your disposal.

These moments are the most enjoyable and you can see what the game wants to be.

The majority of my time playing the game was with the Storm Javelin which out of the four suited my playstyle the most.

Hovering about the battlefield throwing damage from above with elemental powers felt great and as my Javelin got better gear, the feeling of power increased.

The problem with improving the Javelins is that the menus take so long to manoeuvre through.

The constant delay in button presses to what you want to happen actually happening is a constant annoyance; even to the degree where warnings would come on the screen saying that I was doing things too quickly for the game to keep up with.

Connection problems didn’t stop there. During one session, I was thrown out nine times within an hour.

Other times it was less often, but I was kicked back to the home screen at least once each time I played.

The open world map is an exciting one to traverse and visually appealing. The overgrown fauna look isn’t new to games, but the world of Anthem is possibly one of my favourites to explore.

Flying around in your Javelin aiming for waterfalls to keep your suit cooled so you can sustain your flight is a great way to get from point to point.

Where the game starts to struggle is with its arbitrary way of lengthening the play time of the main campaign with pointless tasks.

Too many times I was starting to enjoy the rhythm of the game to be told I have to go do some pointless tasks that aren’t enjoyable.

Even after passing these barriers and completing the main campaign, Anthem didn’t provide anything to keep me engaged.

Levelling up Javelins is the name of the game here, but at the moment, there is no reason to do so.

You get more powerful, do the same things but on a higher difficulty; rinse and repeat. It just doesn’t provide any meaningful incentive to keep going.

There may be a time where Anthem is a stable, engaging and enjoyable game to play.

We could be looking at one of the best games to jump in and out of every day. While technical trouble persists and a lack of content stop providing players with a reason to come back, it’s almost impossible even to suggest that people spend hard earned cash and take a punt on Anthem.